121 
STATIC E LIMONIUM ON THE NORTH BANK 
OF THE HUMBER. 
T. PETCH, B.A., B.Sc. 
( Continued from page 96 J. 
Statice Limonium has long-styled, short -styled, and inter- 
mediate flowers. These, with the correlated differences in 
the flowers, have been described by MacLeod (Bot. Centralb., 
Bd. 29, pp. 152-3). At Cleethorpes all three forms occur, 
but 1 was unable to find any but long-styled flowers on the 
Yorkshire side of the Humber. Flowers collected at Burnham - 
on -Crouch on October 8th, 1904, showed all the forms, about 
one -third being long-styled ; but among the short -styled 
forms were all possible lengths of style up to the intermediate, 
and the separation of these two forms was somewhat arbitrary. 
In common with other members of the Plumb aginaceae , 
Statice Limonium has peculiar glands, known as * organs of 
Licopoli ’ or Mettenius glands, on the leaf. These, viewed 
from the surface, are circular, and consist of eight cells. 
In Statice Limonium they are slightly sunk below the level 
of the surface of the leaf, but are not overarched by the sur- 
rounding epidermal tissue. Viewed from the surface, one 
sees two concentric circles, crossed by two diameters at right 
angles to one another, and a central square with its corners on 
the two diameters. Each gland consists of four central cells, 
triangular in plan, followed by four trapezoidal cells, and sur- 
rounded by an annulus composed of four narrow, curved cells. 
The gland in shape is semi-ellipsoid, the surface being per- 
pendicular to the major axis, and its component cells meet in 
fours on the major axis. The eight inner cells are regarded 
as the secretory cells, the outer four being styled accessory 
cells. 
In some species of Statice, these glands excrete calcium 
carbonate : in Statice Limonium they excrete salt, which can 
sometimes be seen in glistening particles on the leaf. 
Naturally, these glands have attracted the attention of 
botanists, and several papers have been written on the subject. 
Maury (. Ann . Sci. Nat. Bot., Ser. 7, IV. (1886), p. 1) claimed 
that there were not eight central cells, but only four ; these 
four separated from one another in the centre, and thus gave 
a fictitious appearance of eight ; the four cells secreted calcium 
carbonate, etc., into the space between them, and this was 
ejected by the pressure of the turgescent cells through a hole 
in the middle of the gland. 
Maury’s account was adopted by Engler-Prantl ( Pflan - 
zenfamilien IV., 1, p. 117). It had, however, been contra- 
1922 Apl. 1 
